Cursed or Not
by Areiton
Summary: Castiel's stolen grace is fading. When Dean's dead body goes missing, with only a note left behind, he uses what little power he has left to find him. And realizes that Dean who isn't his Dean, is still someone he could love.


Cursed and Not

Castiel's stolen grace is fading. When Dean's dead body goes missing, with only a note left behind,

he uses what little power he has left to find him.

And realizes that Dean who isn't _his_ Dean, is still someone he could love.

 _This doesn't feel real. Around me, my brethren are fighting still. And in front of me—_

 _I reach for him, and a million memories flood through me. He's fighting me. He doesn't look like himself. Those familiar, laughing eyes are dark and dead. Almost black. I can feel the pain in his soul as he fights me._

 _I wrap my arms around him, and whisper his name as I pull him from hell._

 _We need you._

The words hang in the air, buzzing along the edges of my awareness and I cock my head.

It's not Dean. That it comes at all is unexpected. Sam never calls me. For a moment, I consider ignoring it. I'm not used to pain. I'm not used to _feeling_. I don't like it. I don't like that every time I think about him, there is this crushing pain in my chest.

It's worse, in a way, than losing my grace. Because even then, I knew it was temporary. Dean would never let me live without grace. I'd spent years watching him, and he would move hell and defy heaven to protect the family he loved.

Somewhere along the line, I had become one of those. I turn away but then—

 _Cas, it's Dean._

"What's wrong?" I demand, appearing behind Sam. I stumble a step, pain jerking through me. The Winchester startles, whipping around to stare at me. His eyes are wide and scared.

"He's gone."

My eyes narrow and I take a step forward. Sam doesn't even react.

The Winchesters have been around celestial beings and hell's king too long. It doesn't even register on his face how furious I am. "What do you mean?" I growl.

"Look," he says, waving toward the back of the bunker.

I'm tempted to fly but I run instead. A flat sprint as fear spirals through me and I try to wrap my head around this. He can't be—

I stop and stare. Step, slowly, inside.

In that room that should have not been my own personal hell.

It still smells like him, here. Clean and fresh, touched with gunpowder and that unidentifiable smell that I still remember from the first time I caught it. When it was covered by the scent of death and hell, and it was still _him._ My heart hurts, and it's not the fading stolen grace.

It _hurts._

The bed is empty. As empty as if it had never been touched.

"When?" I ask, stepping deeper into the room. My skin prickles as I touch the bed, the pillow curving under my fingertips. It's so cold it coaxes a shiver from me.

"I left him here with Crowley, and when I—"

"You left him with _Crowley?"_ I snarl and that does get a reaction. Sam pales. Like he knows he fucked up.

"You were gone."

It's not an accusation. Sam is very careful—he's perceptive in ways that Dean hasn't been. His eyes dart away from me. "You were gone and he was dead. What should have I done?"

"You should have called me!" I shout.

Sam flinches, but his gaze snaps up, tortured as he stares at me. "You couldn't save him, Cas. You could barely get yourself here. You're falling apart, man. Crowley—"

I turn away. I can't look at him.

There is a bitter irony that when Sam and Dean needed me most, I was helpless to protect them.

"I'll find him," I say, gritting my teeth as I let my grace unspool. Power, raw and stolen, seers through me, and I choke back a groan.

"Cas, wait—there's something else."

I don't want to wait. I don't want to be here without Dean. I shove down the childish urge to bolt, and look back at Sam.

He looks nervous, and his hand shakes a little when he extends it to me. A small slip of paper.

 _Sammy. Let me go._

He didn't. "He doesn't mean this," I say.

He can't mean it. If he meant it—I jerk to my feet. "I'll find him," I say.

"Cas," Sam shouts, but it's too late.

I'm already gone.

Dean is not easy to find. Not the way that he was, before I warded him. But he is my creation. I stitched him together when I ripped him from hell, recreated the shell that the pit destroyed.

He may not be easy to find, and I may be using borrowed grace and half-less than-strength-but he is _mine._

And I will always. Always. Find him.

It takes me three days. And by then, I'm exhausted, my stolen grace fading faster than expected. Using it to locate Dean's aura was not wise. Using it to move to his side—might kill me. I do the next best thing.

I steal a car and drive.

I hate driving. I miss my wings, miss the freedom of being able to move through space and time with the mere thought and will.

And I miss him. In the past, when I drove, it was with Dean, in his shining black Impala, his twisted grin and haunted eyes to keep me company.

The sun is rising when I reach the city. It's small, and I drift through slowly. Unless he's hunting, Dean will be sleeping.

That's fine. I don't need to see him. Not yet.

I need to see where he's been. And what the hell he's doing.

When night falls, I'm sitting in my car outside the bar. It's not the only one in town. But it's the only one he'll go to. It's rundown, a shambling wreck of a place with cheap beer, neon lights and women that Dean likes—damaged.

I think he likes them as broken as he is, so he can pretend for a moment that he isn't. He's a caregiver. If someone else is hurt, he can forget that he is.

The rumble is familiar and haunting. I twist and the whole world tilts as it rumbles up.

I can't see that damn car without seeing him. Even the months before he was sent to hell, when I watched from a distance as he and Sam fought for a way to keep him alive, I associated that car with everything that Dean is.

Loud. Imposing. Fierce and so beautiful it almost hurt.

The door opens and I inch lower behind the wheel of my stolen truck, watching him.

He's laughing. Whole. He moves with that fierce grace that I've always admired. Even when he was only my human charge, and I was not fallen.

Crowley steps out of the Impala, and I jerk forward in my seat. He says something and Dean throws his head back, laughing.

He so rarely laughs like that. I remember—we were trapping Raphael, and I was going to die. Dean took me to a whore house, and I upset the girl.

He laughed like this, then.

Why does it hurt so much, that Crowley can make him this happy?

I shake my head, and he pauses, his head tilted in my direction and I sink in my seat. Hiding from him.

I've never been able to hide from Dean, though. Not truly. He isn't celestial, but he has always been exceptionally good at sensing me.

That could prove problematic, if I'm not careful.

Crowley says something, and Dean's attention swings from me to the King of Hell. He grins and jogs up the steps, disappearing into the bar.

I let out a slow breath and ponder what to do now.

I've found Dean. Sam would want to know. Dean likes to think that Sam doesn't care about him as much as Dean is devoted to his younger brother. But if I tell Sam, he'll come in and they'll fight.

Dean is happy.

And I hate that. I hate that he is happy with Crowley. I hate that he left us—left _me—_ to be with Crowley for any reason.

But I also hate the idea of killing that smile.

Dean deserves to be happy, even if it means being with someone I loathe. Even if it means he leaves me and Sam behind.

I drop the phone and straighten my shoulders.

But first, I want to know what the fuck made him leave.

I watch from the truck for hours. Until the bar empties, and I see Crowley leave. And Dean still hasn't emerged. I wait, patiently, for another hour after Crowley leaves.

And then I slip out of the truck.

The bar is empty. Even the bartender is gone. Dean is sitting at the bar alone.

I pause in the door, and his shoulders tense.

"Hello, Dean." I say, and he let's out a sigh.

"Took you long enough, Cas. I was beginning to think you weren't coming in."

I swallow my smile. "You saw me."

He twists, giving me a grin that feels like home.

Even knowing that this shouldn't be possible. Even knowing that something is very wrong, and that we need to talk about it, and that Crowley's presence at his side is so wrong it feels like a blade between my ribs, even knowing all of that—I can't help but smile in response. Walk closer. He twist the cap off a beer and sets it in front of the stool next to him as I sit.

"Sammy?"

I can feel the reluctance in him as he asks. He doesn't want to ask. And he can't help it. He'll always ask about his brother.

"He doesn't know where you are. He is very worried, Dean." I look at him. "We both were."

Dean shrugs and grins. "I'm fine. He's got nothing to worry about."

"You were dead," I say, my voice low.

"Now I'm not," he shoots back, and grabs his beer.

"Dean,"

"Let it go, Cas." He snaps. I shift away, stung, falling silent as he swallows the beer.

"Like Sam was supposed to let you go," I ask.

" _Dammit_ , Cas!" he shouts, twisting to glare. "I said let it go."

"Would you?" I growl. All of the fury I've been trying to ignore, the panic that makes it hard to breath—all of it wells up suddenly and I'm furious. I want to fight him. I want to beat the hell out of him and drag him back to the bunker and force him to explain, and I want, more than anything, to touch him. To feel his warm skin under my fingers and his lips under mine, and know that this isn't a fever dream brought on by my own longing.

That Dean is real. Alive. Staring at me with angry green eyes.

"You would never have let it go. Never let Sam go and forgotten him. What gives you the right to demand that from us?"

Dean frowns at me. "Us, huh? Since when have you and Sammy been an _us¸_ Cas?"

"Since you vanished and didn't tell us where you were going, you ass." I spit back.

He let's out a slow breath, and I feel…something…stirring in his eyes and the slip of his soul that I know like my own. It's not guilt. It's…resignation. Acceptance.

"Dean," I whispered, and for the first time since I saw him, that fear is back. The bone crushing, breath stealing, paralyzing fear. It's worse, somehow, than when he was dead. When Metatron was taunting me and I was frozen with grief that was so crushing I couldn't process it.

I've never lost Dean. Not the way Sam had, when he was in Hell, and I dragged him out. Even when he was in purgatory, and I was lost in a maze of hate and self loathing, he was there. He's _always_ been there. Since I pulled him from the Pit and he so casually called me Cas.

Names have power, and Dean named me. Made me Cas, and not Castiel, the warrior of heaven.

But. He's different now, and it's not just the Mark.

It's deeper.

"Dean, why? What happened?" I ask, and I don't need to say more than that.

I don't need to spit out Crowley's name, or demand to know why he's here with _him._

Dean releases a slow sigh. "You can just go, Cas. You don't want to know this, man."

I straighten slowly, and my eyes narrow. Dean laughs, a low chuckle that rubs low and warm in my gut.

"You asked, angel." He mutters.

And then he lifts his head and looks at me.

And his green eyes, those beautiful eyes I know like my own, are gone.

Black pits stare back at me, and it makes sense, it all makes sense, a horrible horrible sense that makes my stomach hurt and I make a noise, a low groan. " _Dean,"_ I whisper, shock and fury mixing.

Dean is a demon.

 _The barn is decrepit and dirty. It is not where I would have chosen. I feel lightening crackle, and ahead of me, I can see him._

 _He's standing there, his eyes wide and scared._

 _Dean Winchester. The Righteous Man that heaven and hell waited for. Is terrified. It almost curls a smile on my lips, before I remember._

 _I didn't want to do this. Not yet. It's too soon. He doesn't realize how weak he is—but I can feel it, the body that I stitched together and rebuilt and dragged back to life. He's almost shaking and I can't decide if it's fury or fear._

" _Who are you?" he asks, and I stare at him. Feel all the anger and confusion, the question screaming in his head. I heard it in Hell. I heard it every moment since—even when he was reunited with Sam, and I watched from a distance._

Why me?

" _I'm the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition," I say, quietly, the power of my Grace beginning to fade._

 _Loathing—self-loathing and fear—slips over his face, there and gone so fast. "Thanks for that," he grunts._

 _And then he stabs me._

"Dean, what _happened?"_

He looks away, but it doesn't matter. All I can see are those black eyes, and his sarcastic smirk.

"I don't know, Cas. One minute I was fighting Metatron, and getting stuck like a pig. And the next—I was waking up in the bunker with Crowley. Like this." He shrugs, and takes another sip of his beer. Grins at me. "You said the Mark was a bad idea."

I swallow down my guilt.

I knew it was a bad idea. But I didn't expect this—I didn't expect…

This isn't possession. There is too much of Dean in his grin, in the question about Sam. In the beer he had waiting for me, that he keeps glancing at as it sits, sweaty and forgotten on the bar. Demon or not, he's still Dean.

He's still _mine._

And that prompts my words. "Dean, let me fix this."

For a long moment, he doesn't respond. Then he lets out a slow breath and shakes his head. Straightens on the barstool and twists to stare at me. His green eyes are so curious and—dead.

"What the fuck makes you think I want you to fix anything?" he asks, curious and calm.

Shock. That's the thing I'm feeling. I've felt it before, and it never fails to surprise me. Perhaps that is the nature of the emotion.

"If I wanted to be fixed, don't you think I'd have stayed? Why the fuck do we always feel like shit needs to be _fixed._ I did what we needed to kill Abaddon. This is the price. And frankly, I'm ok with paying. I'm still killing demons."

"You are sitting at _Crowley's_ side," I snarl. "You are a Knight of Hell, Dean. How can you be ok with that?"

He stares at me. "Why does it matter, Cas? Whatever I am, I'm me. Accept that or go back to Sam and forget you found me."

There's a challenge in his eyes. A taunt that stirs something low in my gut. I accepted another demon, once.

 _Meg._

I shiver and look away. Stand and walk away from him.

"Are you leaving?"

I hesitate in the doorway, my thoughts racing. I should tell Sam. I should drag Dean home, like I drug him from the Pit. I _need_ to fix this. More than anything I've ever needed, I need to fix _this._

"No," I say hoarsely.

I don't miss the relieved sigh that slips from him, before I push into the night. "I just need a minute."

" _I don't care what you did, Cas. I need you."_

 _I can feel the words. Can feel the desperation in Dean's voice. Even now that I've lost my grace and I can't do anything to help him—I can_ hear _him, when he prays to me._

 _It makes it worse. Because as desperate as he I, as much as he needs me—I am helpless._

 _He doesn't care what I did. But how can he not care? He knows. All of them know—and my siblings want me dead. This is worse, even than when I claimed the throne of God and decimated the heavenly host. It is worse than when I let Dean believe he failed me when I chose to stay in Purgatory._

 _He says he forgives me. That he does not care._

 _And I do not believe him, because how could anyone not care._

 _I listen to his prayer, his quiet pleading. I can feel the desperation and the confusion at my silence, and the fear. The_ fear _that is shaking through him._

 _I want, desperately, to fix this. I want him to smile when he sees me._

 _I want him to see me, the way Meg did._

 _And I want, so badly, to believe that he means it. That when I find him, and Sam is whole, that none of this will matter anymore._

I spend the next three days, watching.

And it hurts.

It hurts the way losing my grace did not, the way watching him fight to survive and get us out of Purgatory did not, the way losing my siblings never would.

There is no pain in heaven or hell that compares to losing Dean, the man I saved, the friend I never expected—the soul I _fell_ for—to Crowley. To seeing him, pressed against a blonde waitress, his lips against hers, and the King of Hell watching with a tolerant amusement. There is nothing that will ever compare to seeing his eyes bleed black as he kills a demon who launches himself at Dean in an alley, screaming Abaddon's name.

There is nothing that will ever take away the ache of seeing him happy like this.

But.

I spend three days watching. The first day, when he and Crowley stepped into the building, I was sitting at the bar. I could see them, in the glass behind the bar, and I saw the relieved smile, and the way his shoulders straightened a little. Saw the tension in Crowley before Dean leans into him and whispers.

Dean is, even now, even with his humanity fading, protecting me.

Because Dean Winchester will always protect the people who he calls family.

It takes me three days, to realize the truth.

I don't _care_.

Demon or not, Dean is still _Dean._

He still drinks too much, and fucks broken, beautiful girls who I want to smite—but only just a little. He still watches me, when he thinks I'm not noticing, and protects me without thinking. He still has that infuriating little smirk, and the deep love of pie. He is still prone to turning into a deep introspection with little warning, and no provocation.

He is still my Dean, and demon or no, I can't turn away from him.

I've never been able to turn away from him. I fell from heaven because of this man. Because when he needed me, I was unable to turn away.

Naomi once said I was lost the first time I laid a hand on Dean in the pit.

That may be true, but as I watch him cut across the bar, I can't bring myself to care.

I have damned myself, over and over, and I would do it all again, for the chance to be with him.

He stops next to me. "Come on," he orders roughly.

And because he is Dean and I am his angel—even now.

I do as he says.

The Impala is dirty. In the years that I've known Dean, I have never seen the Impala dirty. That alone tells me something about Dean's mental state. I sit in the front seat as he drives, one hand loose on the wheel. I sit still and silent while he drives, content for the moment to not pressure him for answers. Something else I've learned over the past three days of watching Dean—he can't be pushed. Even less so now than before he became a demon. Even as a Knight of Hell, he is impossible for Crowley to command.

When he stops, I shift in the seat. We're at the hotel, and my car sits not far from where we are parked. Dean hates my car. It amuses me, in a distant sort of way.

"What are we doing here?" I ask, my voice low.

"Why are you still here, Cas?" he asks, and I turn to look at him. Frown. He waves at himself. "Dean isn't home, man. I'm not that guy. What the hell are you sticking around for?"

"For you," I say, confused.

He laughs, a sharp noise that feels wrong. It's not the noise he made for Crowley. I hate that. "I'm not going to be what you want, Cas."

Fury fills me and I hit him, hard. Hard enough that his head snaps to the side and when he jerks around to me, his eyes are black.

I grab his collar and drag him to me.

And I kiss him.

The thing that I have wanted for so long. It feels like eons, all of my long life stretched out, waiting for the one moment, when the man I have guarded and killed for, collides with me.

Our history—an endless parade of confusion and smiles and choices and trust, his voice holding my name like a promise as his lips curve up—flares up, a supernova of everything he is and I am.

Because I am kissing him.

He shoves at me, and I growl, nipping hard at his lower lip and he gasps and his tongue is _there_ , sliding along mine and I can taste him and his hands aren't shoving me away anymore, they're yanking me closer, his hands fisted in my hair, and I hiss when he yanks, too hard, and not hard enough and he grabs me, hauling me into him by the loose knotted tie.

It's violent and furious and breathtaking. His hands are too hard, and I gasp when he squeezes my neck, knowing that I will have bruises there.

I am too human to handle his rough treatment.

And I won't for a moment tell him that.

I shove his hands down, pin them and kiss him again, and when he groans my name, it is different. It's low, and husky, broken with longing and I can't help the way my hips roll into him. He curses, low and filthy and arches under me.

"Cas," he snarls. His eyes open and they are black.

So. Black.

It makes me still. I stare at him for a long moment, the color taunting and terrifying and I feel my stomach sink.

My Dean is in there. And I would do anything for him, sell my soul and damn heaven—for him.

"I can't do this," I say finally, and slid off him.

"Cas, what—"

I push open the door of the Impala. Dean curses behind me and scrambles out and I look away. Because as much as I want him, as much as I _love_ him, I cannot bear to look at him right now.

"What the fuck was that?" he snarls.

"You know what it was, Dean," I say, my voice empty.

He falls silent, and for a moment all I can feel is fear, the fear that I've destroyed this, the friendship that means more to me than anything in heaven or hell. "Yeah," he says, softly. "I just don't know why you stopped."

Relief almost makes me giddy. Almost makes me turn and shove him against the car and take everything I've ever wanted. Almost makes me drag him to his hotel room, strip us both, and worship him the way I've wanted to do for years.

Almost.

"I can still see you, Dean," I whisper, and I feel the tension in him as he hesitates, centimeters from my back. I turn, and he's too close. I cannot think, when he is this close. I lick my lips and his eyes track it, his pupils blown with lust as he stares at me.

"And what do you see, angel?"

"I see _you._ But not only you." God this hurts. I don't want to do this. I don't want to throw this away. I lean into him and kiss him again. A gentle kiss that does nothing to kill the arousal in me. I want him. I've always wanted him.

I turn away and walk to my car.

"Cas?" he says, his voice rough and confused.

I hesitate at the door. "You're mine, Dean Winchester. Cursed or not, you always will be mine. But I don't want to share you."

He stares at me, and I lick my lips. "Find me when you don't a demon." I say simply, and then I slide into my car.

I watch him in the rearview mirror, as I drive away. And I do something no angel has ever done.

I pray.

 _Come back to me, Dean. Come back to me._


End file.
